


Heartache

by superfluoussplendor



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Background Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, F/M, Jace Wayland Feels, M/M, Song Lyrics, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6751723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluoussplendor/pseuds/superfluoussplendor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clary struggles with her feelings for Jace and there is a song that won't stop playing in her head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartache

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely set in the Shadowhunters world after the first season (Jace did not go with Valentine). Songfic based on Brandi Carlisle's "Touching the Ground". I've read the books and I would not write for this pairing if I hadn't...
> 
> First fic for the fandom and first in a very long time. Kind of just bouncing around my head. Hope you enjoy.

“It used to make you feel better”

“Yeah Simon, when were children! And my largest audience comprised of three people,” Clary admonished shaking her head and continued to pace.

“I just…” He trailed off, his eyes still following her movements.

“What!?” Clary asked too forcefully.

“…hate seeing you this way,” he finished dejectedly, not meeting her eyes.

She felt like a jerk. Her best friend was doing his best to make her feel better and all she could do was lash out at him. “Simon…I.”

“It’s okay Clary, I understand I just thought…”

Simon had always had only the best intentions. He really believed that singing at his next gig at the cramped and dingy coffee shop—where he was paid for his effort in sour coffee and stale biscotti—was something that would take her mind off of her problems.

But her problems were more than a simple sing-a-long could fix. There wasn’t really a song that would fix _you can’t unlove someone even though they turn out to be the older brother you never knew you had_ , or at least there really shouldn’t be she thought. _This shouldn’t be a very common problem_.

No matter how well intentioned her be-speckled and nerdy best friend was, there was nothing he could do to fix the void in her chest where just weeks before she had been bursting with hope and the nervous energy of something new and unspoken. She was in love with someone she absolutely couldn’t be, her own brother, and there was no walking away because they were bond together by a bond she would give anything to be different. The song that had been drifting through her mind over the past weeks began again _wherever your feet are touching the ground_ —and maybe Simon was right.

It couldn’t hurt really, the coffee shop didn’t draw a very large crowd and it wasn’t as though she thought she was a bad singer. In her own opinion, she wasn’t half bad, and maybe she would finally be free of the song in her head. Like a jingle on the radio that you just have to sing.

“Okay.” She must have been silent a long time because Simon seemed to startle when she spoke.

“Okay?” He looked bemused. Maybe a very long time considering he seemed to have forgotten what they were talking about.

She smiled, it was tiny but it felt like a triumph, her first real smile in days. “I know just the song…” _Why must my heartache be found…_

Alec had never been able to bear seeing Jace in pain, and worse seeing him in pain in the midst of his own joy. Since his would-be wedding, things with Magnus had moved very quickly despite the eccentric Warlock’s promise to take things slow. He wasn’t complaining though. After standing rigidly in the closet his entire life, freedom felt good and for the first time in a long time he wasn’t lonely.

Of course he had always had Izzy and Jace but pretending—not very well, Izzy would say—had always made him feel like an outsider. He had been lying to himself and everyone around him, and it was obvious now how much he had hurt himself in doing so. Magnus had been right. He was starting to find that his partner almost always was, although it brought him no little annoyance to admit it. Keeping his true self secret had isolated him and now he felt as though he was making up for lost time.

Izzy loved it. The ‘beautiful Bane of his existence’ threw the best parties after all, and Izzy was ecstatic to be given a VIP invite to every single one—conditional on the task of dragging her stuck up brother of course. Alec showed up to Magnus’s more often than not with Izzy dragging him forward by the elbow. She would party the night away while Alec and Magnus would slink away to some empty quiet room and get to know one another better.

Alec sometimes wondered why the warlock threw parties at all. To him it did not seem he enjoyed them much. Always preferring to sit alone with Alec talking or not talking, wards on the walls to keep out the din of the party raging in his living room. But Alec didn’t mind. If he was being honest it made him feel special, singled out in a way that he had never before experienced. It was becoming increasingly obvious he was falling in love and he was well aware the Magnus was already there, just waiting to catch him.

And this was exactly why seeing Jace so miserable was bothering him. He was the happiest he had ever been, and Jace was barely holding it together. If he wasn’t picking unnecessary fights, he was throwing himself bodily into his missions. Wherever there was danger in Brooklyn, Jace was in the thick of it. Izzy and Alec had more than once come out of a fight with more scrapes than were usual, collateral damage to Jace’s thrill-seeking, borderline suicidal behavior.

And Alec understood—he really did. He had acted rashly many times in the past, nursing his unrequited love for his adopted brother, but things were getting out of hand, and this was so much worse than unrequited love. Now that he had Magnus he could look at what was between Jace and Clary without the haze of jealousy, and his heart broke—for both of them. It was obvious to anyone that what was between them still, and what little they had shared was real and earth-shattering. He could not imagine the pain the two of them were in, especially Jace. Alec still knew him better than anyone, could see his struggle with himself.

Jace’s self-loathing was palpable. The newly discovered siblings had been avoiding each other in the weeks since the revelation and the separation only seemed to be making Jace worse. In fear for the blonde boy’s life, Alec decided it was time to do something about it.

 

Clary was nervous but in a way that made her feel exhilarated and alive which only made her feel more guilty about losing her temper with Simon. The two of them had slipped back into old habits, the tension between them beginning to ebb and it was suddenly like old times. She was so thankful too because the familiarity helped take her mind off her problems. She smiled fondly at the top of Simon’s shaggy head as he bent over his guitar to tune it.

Java Jones was pretty packed for a Wednesday night gig but the crowd only increased the adrenaline. She was sitting on a tall bar stool so that her feet barely touched the ground, center stage with an old fashioned stand up microphone. Simon, off to her left, tapped her shin with his foot and when she turned to look at him mouthed ‘you ready?’

She nodded, taking a deep breath while he leaned into his own mic. “Hi everybody! Thanks for coming out tonight. I am one half of Rock Solid Panda, and as a special treat this evening, I’ve dragged my friend Clary along to serenade you.” There were cheers from the crowd as well as wolf whistles and Clary felt herself blush, but then Simon began playing and she was lost in her thoughts, the words coming out without much effort,

_I swear when we touched I saw heaven in your eyes_

_Jewel Studded clouds floating in your skies_

She thought of Jace, the electric intensity in his eyes when he looked at her—used to look at her. It hurt too much now to see nothing where she used to think—maybe just hope—she saw passion, but there was nothing she could do about it now. That road was cut off for them, and there was no use dwelling on ‘what if’s.’

_Seas of blue and fields of green  
Looking like you fell out of someone's dreams_

He was prevalent in the pages of her sketchbook and she couldn’t bring herself to remove them, but she also couldn’t ever let anyone see them. They were not innocent figure studies like the ones of Simon, or Luke. She would sometimes catch herself drawing him idly in parts, the curve of his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the surprisingly delicate lines of his hands. She wished she didn’t know how gentle those hands could be, framing her face, pushing back her hair.

If she wasn’t careful, she was going to cry in front of all of these people. She tried to focus on the crowd, anything but the torrent in her head. She scanned the small room as she continued to sing, humbled by the rapt attention most of the patrons exuded.

 _Why…….. do my troubles turn true……._  
Whenever I rest my eyes on you  
Why…… must my heartache be found…..  
Wherever your feet are touching the ground

She continued to scan the crowd but then her heart skipped a beat, probably in it’s hurry to journey up her throat. She was thankful for the brief instrumental interlude as she gained her composure slightly after spotting a familiar gold head in the crowd. Alec and Izzy were on either side of him, she wearing a sweet but sad smile and Alec trying very hard to avoid her eyes.

_You could sing an army of angels to sleep  
Songs that could cause the devil to weep_

Jace. Jace was staring at her unabashedly. And her heart ached at what she saw in his face. There were dark circles under his eyes and his face looked more angular and hollow. _He isn’t eating or sleeping enough._ She wavered at the realization. Her mind still tried to convince her that she had exaggerated his feelings for her, that to him it had been a passing fancy, that he wasn’t reeling like she was, but her heart knew better. She ached all over and wished that she had picked any other song, that she could stop and walk away. More than anything, she wanted to go back to that day, weeks ago when everything, yet again, had been pulled out from underneath her. She wanted so badly to stop the world in a moment—any moment where she and Jace loved each other the way they never could now—and live there forever.

_You hold me so sweet when the day is done  
Enough to make you wonder where we all came from_

But she couldn’t do that to Simon after all he had done to try to help her. She looked for him out of the corner of his eye to see if he had seen the others. He must have because the look on his face was tumultuous. She nodded at him, hoping he understood that she was alright. Or at least as alright as she could be while singing a sad song to her brother all about how he broke her heart, as if either of them were to blame for their shared misery.

 _Why…….. do my troubles turn true……._  
Whenever I rest my eyes on you  
Why…… must my heartache be found…..  
Wherever your feet are touching the ground  
My heartache can be found  
Wherever your feet are touching the ground

Alec hadn’t meant for this. He had heard from Izzy that Simon and Clary were going to be a the dingey Mundane hangout but she had not divulged that they were the entertainment, whether because she didn’t know or hadn’t thought to mention it, he wasn’t sure. They had arrived a little late because of the convincing it took to get Jace to go, entering the door just as a beautiful yet sad voice began to sing.

Alec had always found it strange how rarely a person’s singing voice sounded like their speaking voice so he didn’t realize who it was until he glimpsed red hair through the crowd. It shimmered almost bronze in the stage light making her look angelic with a sad and wistful smile on her lips. Jace must have recognized her voice straight away if the way he had shoved through the crowd was any clue. By the first verse they were standing in the very front. Jace was staring at Clary, expression unreadable and Alec could hear the words Clary was singing now. _This was a huge mistake_ he thought. Magnus’ words came to him unhelpfully, _That, my handsome boy, is an absolutely terrible idea._ He was really beginning to hate that his partner was always right…

_And out of those eyes I'm feeling rain  
Bringing me misery and giving me pain_

Clary at least had the decency to look apologetic, Alec thought. He decided to get Jace out of here before things could get any worse. He grabbed Jace’s bicep, planning to turn him back towards the door but Jace shook him off none too gently. Isabelle gasped and tentatively placed a hand on Jace’s other arm trying to look into his face while darting looks back at her brother.

_Curse these shackles that you put on me  
Blessed be the day when you set me free_

Clary almost stopped when she say Jace pull his arm from Alec’s grasp. She had been hoping that he would have gone with him but he had never moved his eyes from her. She could do nothing but meet them apologetically, trying to will him to understand that she didn’t really blame him, or at least didn’t want to. Really the whole point of all of this is that you cannot help how you feel no matter how hard you try.

She may have sung the last chorus a little faster than she meant to but just before the last line of the song Jace had finally looked away. And it may have been a trick of the light, or just a side effect from the intense stare, but he looked as though tears were welling in his eyes. Jace pushed his way out through the crowd with the Lightwoods following close behind, only Isabelle turned to give her a sad smile before darting after her brothers. _My brother_ Clary thought.

As Simon played the final notes, she made a hasty exit, mumbling a quick apology to her best friend, that got awkwardly picked up by the PA system, and ran out the door behind the stage. As she ran out into the alley she could just hear Simon talking to the crowd. “Thanks everyone! That was Clary. I forgot to mention she is a crime fighter every other Wednesday so there she goes off to…” but she was out of range to hear the rest and besides the blood was pounding in her ears as she ran after Jace and the Lightwoods.

She didn’t have to go far. She almost passed him, leaning in a doorway of a boarded up building. She caught her breathe as he pushed off the dilapidated door, hair glinting in the light of a street lamp down where the alley met the sidewalk. Between singing and running off, and if she was being honest with herself, the sudden breathlessness that always came with seeing him, catching her breath remained an issue. “Where are--?” she started.

“Sent them home.” They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity and she thought, a little bitterly, _why does this have to be the moment that stretches out forever?_

“Didn’t know you could do that,” he said, expression unreadable.

Clary’s mind raced. _What does he think I’m good at?_ She wondered. _Ripping his heart out and stomping it? Blaming him for all of my pain when he’s obviously just as miserable, probably more because his whole life has been a lie?_

“…the singing I mean.”

Clary exhaled a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.”oh.”

“Did you write it?” He asked. “The song?”

And her chest felt tight. He was so earnest, his usual swagger gone. She had never seen him so unsure.

She sighed “no.”

“But you could have,” he laughed dark and humorlessly.

“Jace I—“

“No.” He cut her off avoiding her eyes.

“What?” When he did look up at her his face was tilted down so that he was looking through his eyelashes at her, making him seem smaller and guarded.

“Don’t apologize for how you feel. Not to me.” And she felt as though he was trying to say more with those words but she couldn’t be sure. It was unbearable, seeing him like this, so unlike his usual self. He seemed so broken and she couldn’t keep herself from shouldering the blame, especially after what she had just done. She cringed. Which must have sent the entirely wrong message because for the second time tonight Jace looked like he might start crying.

“I didn’t think you would be here, if I had, I never would have…” she trailed off. She wasn’t entirely sure how to finish that sentence.

“I shouldn’t have been,” he said straightening up and seeming a little more like himself although Clary wasn’t sure it was entirely genuine. “you can thank Alec for that. He seems to think us talking will help, as if there is anything either of us could say—“

“—that would ease our pain,” she cut in. He blinked at her slightly pale and he looked shocked.

“I am sorry that you heard that song, you have to know I don’t want to blame you! I really don’t! Being near you is just so hard and confusing now, but I’ve missed you so much. I’m happy you’re here even if it hurts! Jace I—“ words were spilling from her mouth in a rush. She didn’t even have time to catch her breath before his arms were around her and even as she fought it she melted into his embrace, hiding her face in his shoulder and feeling his chin resting on her’s. _Now this is a moment that could last forever,_ Clary thought and then chastised herself and her inner dialogue. Jace was mumbling and she could just barley make out his words.

“I can’t be around you but I can’t be without you either. And I don’t want to be away from you but I don’t know what else to do. What do I do Clary. What can I do?” And he held her impossibly tighter.

“I wish I knew,” she whispered.


End file.
